I got a couple of letters from the tax authorities today and the letters had two orange pay in slips for amounts almost as much as my annual tax bill for 2007!!

Initially I was scared but with my broken german and google translation I figured that the letters are my assessment for 07

Now my question is that if this is just an assessment, why have they enclosed the pay in slips (the amounts are scaring the crap out of me). Secondly, why is there no mention of tax at source I have paid (I have a B permit and my company deducts taxes each month)?

By loooking at my assessment and what I have paid , they owe me a refund

I am certainly going to send these to my tax guy tomorrow, but I am a bit anxious about the process since this is my first assessment

Any suggestions/pointers appreciated

Thanks

I received the 2007 assessment and they forgot to take the withholding tax into consideration too. In my case, living in kanton ZH, a simple call to the TA was enough to straighten things out. They would send me a new assessment (please, do take your time) and would deduct the withholding tax. No formal objection was needed. Things maybe different in Basel though, talk to your tax guy.

I was interested to see your post from a few weeks ago as we just received the same letter today with a pink payment slip enclosed, just like yours, for a scary amount.

We had originally been advised by our accountant that we had overpaid for 2007 (we are on B permits and pay at source) and should be owed a large refund. The letter today from the Tax Dept. (Impot Federal) has a pink slip with a seemingly random amount that does not appear to relate to any of the other attached paperwork? The other paperwork (account reconciliation) states that there is a large sum "en votre faveur"...which leads me to think refund?

We searched and found your situation, which sounds exactly like ours, what was the outcome of your case?

BTW we are in VD.

When I got one of those big thick tax assesment forms the other month, I found after some investigation that I should never have received it.

If you pay by Quellensteuer (tax at source), and earn less then 120K CHF a year, you don't need to fill out tax returns unless you really, really want to (in Basel-Stadt at least)!

I was advised by serveral people that the only reason to fill it out is if you want something like extra pension payments taken into account to reduce the tax you pay, or if you think you've overpaid. A quick call to the tax dept got the tax return cancelled for me.
I have been warned that if in the future I do start filling these things out they may demand I do a couple of years worth retrospectively, but only one person (there were 30-odd people in room when we had this discussion, most of them expats who've been here from weeks to years) had actually got hit by that.

Hope this helps

I am still waiting for the revised asessment. My tax consultant tell me that it should take 2-3 weeks after they clarified with the authorities. Hoping to have it next week!

We spoke to the accountant this morning and it seems that we received two separate assesments for 2007 (in the same envelope), one from the canton and then the federal version. The canton says we overpaid and are owed a hefty refund and the federal assesment says we owe them money.

What is the system here where you get competing assessments from two branches of the government with no idea which is the overiding assessment?

The accountant says he has made a request for the two parties to reconcile their assessments. Apparently this is not out of the ordinary and happens all the time. But honestly, WTF?

The Confederation and the Cantons have different rules for deductions, different tax rates and different collection timings. No such thing as reconciliation. You must pay both. You can challenge the assessments separately within 30 days.

Thanks for the input Goldtop. I will check it out with the accountant. Apparently he had already queried something with one of the bodies within the 30 day rule. Your info is conflicting with what he has told us though. Regardless, we owe less to the confederation than we are owed by the canton so hopefully everything will work out. It still seems weird that both bodies assess the same income in different ways then send two seperate assessments in the same envelope (and not even getting into the fact that we are talking about 2007 here)

Thanks again,
Mel

Usually, the same tax officer prepares both the Federal and Cantonal assessments. Very strange if there is an inconsistency.

The gross income will be the same for both. Then each Canton has its own permissible deductions. Thus the net taxable income is invariably different for Fed and canton. The Fed does not tax wealth. The Cantons do.

Moreover, depending on advanced tax paid or withheld, the balance due will be different for Fed and Canton.